


Alright.

by writingaddictsanonymous



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, I need to world build better, Slow Burn, mermaid!lydia, supernatural beings are low-key normal?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-10-29 19:49:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10860867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingaddictsanonymous/pseuds/writingaddictsanonymous
Summary: He had the ocean, he had the beautiful city he lived so near, and if anything else positive wanted to join his life, it was welcome to. What he wasn’t expecting was to come upon a mermaid, apparently… cursed, he was guessing. Her gills and fin were just disappearing as he was walking up, and when he realized that she was now completely naked and, for all intents and purposes, human, he tossed his towel over her, pulling out his phone to call Deaton.





	Alright.

**Author's Note:**

> OK, so this is Chapter 1/? of a little mermaid au, also known as my birthday present to the lovely Everyday_Im_Narrating. I want to wish her the happiest of birthdays and the best of years, she is easily one of the best people and writers I've ever met and I'm so grateful to have her in my life. This didn't end up being exactly what I wanted, but I'd rather be able to gift this to her now than later.

Derek lived a pretty quiet life. He’d bought a house by the ocean, so he fished, swam, didn’t do much in the line of ridding the world of evil, in spite of how many times he’d teamed up with a number of people to stop other supernatural creatures. Derek was a werewolf, but by no means a hero; just because he’d gotten rid of a couple of demons, were-somethings, none of that really mattered. He just wanted to live and not have to worry about everything going on around him. He had the ocean, he had the beautiful city he lived so near, and if anything else positive wanted to join his life, it was welcome to. What he wasn’t expecting was to come upon a mermaid, apparently… cursed, he was guessing. Her gills and fin were just disappearing as he was walking up, and when he realized that she was now completely naked and, for all intents and purposes, human, he tossed his towel over her, pulling out his phone to call Deaton.

“Hello, Derek, what can I do for you?” The vet’s voice was simultaneously disconcerting and soothing, and Derek let out a heavy breath.

“I found a mermaid who I’m thinking was cursed, her gills and fin are gone. What do I do?”

“If you can, get her home and in a pool. Call me tomorrow, okay?”

“Will do,” Derek mumbled, hanging up after a quick, “Thanks, Deaton.” He pushed his phone back into his pocket and picked up the unconscious mermaid, surprised by how little she weighed. It was less than a mile’s walk to his house in the fading sunlight, and by the time Derek was lowering her into the pool, making sure she was held up by a flotation device, the sun was sinking down on the horizon. Derek sat back to wait, keeping his eye on her to make sure she didn’t slip underwater by accident. It was nearly dark when he saw her eyes open, and before he could even say anything, she was sliding off of the floaty, looking shocked when her human feet touched the bottom of the pool. She grabbed the side, visibly confused before she looked up at Derek with wide, fearful eyes.

“What have you done?” she asked, her eyes wide.

“I took you off the beach. You must have been cursed, because I’d just seen your gills and fin disappear,” Derek said slowly, moving to the edge of the pool to let his feet hang in the water. “I have a friend working on how to get you back to normal, but—“

“My family will be looking for me. They’re probably afraid for me!” The mermaid swung her head around to look at the water, eyes welling with tears. When one fell, she wiped it away, looking at it in wonderment. That was when she realized that her wet hair was sticking to her shoulders. “My hair is wet,” she said quietly, taking hold of some of the strands. “I’ve never… felt it like this before.”

“That’s what happens to human hair,” Derek said gently. Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on his knees, eyes unwavering from her. “Can we send a message to your family at all? If we can, we can let them know that you’re safe, that you’ll be back as soon as we can turn you back.”

“There’s no way. We can’t communicate with humans,” she said, her voice small as she looked up at Derek with big, sad eyes. “What if I can’t be turned back?”

“Then you’ll be a human. And it’ll… everything works out, eventually. Look, you can’t stay in the water forever, so—“

“What do you mean, I ‘can’t’ stay in the water? I live in the water.”

“You can’t stay in the water because you’re in a human body now. And we can’t stay in the water for all that long,” Derek explained, holding out a hand. “I’m Derek, by the way. Let me help you out. I don’t know if you’ll be able to walk.”

“You want me to walk. Like a human?”

“Yes. I do. What’s your name?” Derek asked, hand still extended.

“Lydia,” she said, slowly placing her hand in his and letting him pull her up out of the water. Derek carefully set her down gently enough that her feet only just touched the ground. Her face was— well, her face was a little funny to watch.

“You okay?” he asked slowly, watching as Lydia started to find her balance. He guessed that it would be easier for her to walk than a baby, at least, just because she had flat enough feet, but he still wasn’t sure.

“Yeah, I think. I don’t know how to…”

“You’ve just got to move your weight from one foot to the other and pick them up and put them down again,” Derek realized, then, how little he knew about walking, but… that would have to do. “Here, I’ll hold onto you and you just try to do the motion. Pick up your left foot, then put it down ahead of where it was before.” Lydia slowly did as she was told, unsteadily moving forward toward the doors into the living room. Derek was suddenly very conscious of how naked she was and the fact that he had neighbors. “We’ll also have to get you into some clothes, but I don’t have any women’s clothes, so… mine will probably be big on you.”

“That’s okay. I’ve never worn clothes,” Lydia said. She looked amazed when she finally passed the threshold into the house, and Derek gently set her on the couch, laughing a little. “Alright, good job. I’m going to go get you some stuff to wear, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Stay right there, Lydia, I’ll be back in a minute,” Derek headed down the hall to pull out a pair of clean joggers and a t-shirt. He returned to the living room to find Lydia curiously touching a throw pillow, confusion etched into her face.

“Hey. You can put these on.” Lydia looked up, nodding a little as she took the clothes. She picked up the shirt first, and Derek watched with slightly narrow eyes as she managed to get the shirt on without help, but the pants, well.

“Could you help me stand?” Lydia asked, head tilting a little. Derek reached out, supporting her as she stepped into the pant legs and pulled them up. They were significantly looser than she was probably expecting, so Derek quickly helped her tie the drawstring a little tighter.

“Okay, great. Now you’re dressed. Are you, um, hungry?”

“Not really,” Lydia said, moving back again to sit down.

Derek nodded slowly. “Alright. Well, I was going to watch a movie tonight, would you like to watch it with me?”

“Okay. But, um, what’s…”

“A movie is like… it’s a story that you watch instead of reading or hearing.”

Lydia hesitated, then nodded slowly. “Okay. What movie are we going to watch?”

“It’s called The Breakfast Club,” Derek said, sitting down next to her on the couch and letting his arm hang over the back of it as he picked up the remote. “It’s about some teenagers who got into trouble, so they had to go to school on a day off for punishment.”

“I’ll probably be confused,” Lydia warned him. Derek looked over, laughing a little. She was funnier than he’d expected.

“That’s okay,” Derek stretched as he turned on the TV, settling in on the couch. “You’ll figure it out eventually.”

“Wow,” Lydia’s eyes went wide as the TV turned on, the light illuminating their faces slightly in the ever-deepening darkness. The sun was nearly set now. Derek wasn’t ashamed to say that Lydia, mermaid or not, was beautiful. Although, weren’t mermaids presumed to be more beautiful than humans? Maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised. Derek had trouble focusing on the movie as he watched Lydia watch it. It was mesmerizing to see her taking everything in with so much blatant awe and surprise. At some point around the scene where the students leave the room, Lydia looked over at Derek, head tilting. “

How do they make these?” she asked.

“Well, they hire actors to play all the characters, then they get a whole crew together, and they use these things called cameras to record everything. It’s kind of a complicated process, I don’t even know everything about it.”

“Sounds like a lot of work.”

“It usually takes months to make a movie.”

“I could never focus on anything for that long.”

“Neither could I,” Derek said, laughing a little.

“I like this movie.”

“I’m glad. It’s one of my favorites.”

“How many movies are there?”

Derek took a deep breath. “Loose estimation? Probably a million, or something. The number of good movies, though, is probably more in the thousands. I don’t really know.”

Lydia was visibly astounded, just nodding along slowly as Derek spoke. “That’s crazy,” she said softly, shaking her head as she turned her attention back to the movie. Derek did the same, finally focusing in a little bit on what was going on on the screen. By the time the credits rolled, Derek looked over to find Lydia curled up against the throw pillow she’d been playing with earlier, knees drawn up close to her chest. She was fast asleep, and Derek didn’t have the heart to wake her, so he gingerly lifted her into his arms. Derek carried Lydia down the hall to the guest room slowly, trying to walk as smoothly as he could. She barely reacted, almost completely still in his arms. He settled her into the bed carefully, then drew the blanket up over her body and stroked her hair out of her face. With that, Derek headed across the hallway to his own room and got ready for bed, going through his evening routine as patiently as he usually did.

 

When Lydia woke in the morning, it was to the rumbling of her stomach. She wasn’t sure what to eat now, though, considering… she didn’t really know what humans even ate. So she got out of bed slowly, shaky on her unfamiliar legs as she headed toward the door unsteadily. They just felt wobbly and weird underneath her. Lydia could see Derek sleeping in his bed, so she carefully picked her way across the room, chewing on her lower lip to keep herself calm as she gave his shoulder a gentle shake. It was kind of adorable, the way he grumbled his way awake, rubbing at his eyes with one of his hands.

“Good morning,” Lydia said, laughing a little.

“Shit, hi, good morning,” Derek said, rolling to his feet surprisingly smoothly. “‘re you hungry?”

“Yeah, I am.”

“Follow me. You okay walking?”

“I think so. Made it in here just fine.”

Derek shoved his hands into his pockets, hunching forward as he walked toward the kitchen. Lydia followed, stifling giggles at how young and grumpy Derek looked when he was freshly woken up.

“Have a seat,” Derek waved to the stools at the counter island. “I’m gonna make what I usually have and you can… tell me if you like it. If not, we’ll make something else.”

“Okay,” Lydia said agreeably, settling onto a stool to watch Derek cook. She was enthralled by how smoothly he worked in the kitchen, watching intently as he turned on a stove burner and took out a pan, setting it on the burner and putting some kind of oil into it. Then, he turned, opening what she only knew was a refrigerator because someone had mentioned that that was where humans kept food. He took out a box and then pulled out… something round.

“What’s that?” Lydia asked.

“Chicken eggs.”

“Okay then.”

Derek smiled at her, and Lydia lifted an eyebrow, interested to see what he was going to do. He cracked one of the eggs off of the edge of the pan and poured the inside into it, then did the same thing again. Lydia watched in fascination as they cooked, hardly even noticing as Derek walked away to put bread in the toaster and take butter out of the fridge. Before she knew it, he was sliding a plate in front of her and offering her a fork. “You know how to use a fork, I’m guessing?”

“I have a pretty good idea, but we’ll see how it goes,” when Lydia looked up, she was surprised to see Derek watching her with… something close to affection in his eyes. Before either of them could say anything, though, Derek’s phone started ringing. He picked it up off of the counter slowly.

“I’ll be right back. You go ahead and eat,” Derek stepped out of the kitchen as he brought the phone to his ear, and Lydia turned her attention to the plate in front of her. She started by taking a bite of the bread that he’d toasted and put the butter on, surprised that it actually tasted pretty good. Next, she put the fork in her right hand, clumsily cutting off a little piece of the egg to try. It was weird, but not bad, so she continued eating slowly, trying not to listen too closely to Derek’s conversation. She knew that humans tended to want their privacy. He came back after a little while, and Lydia looked up, about a third of the food on the plate gone. “Hey, I’m glad someone can appreciate my cooking,” Derek laughed, although he seemed… stiff, in a way.

“Are you okay?” Lydia asked. She tilted her head a little, concerned by the fact that he was clearly hiding something.

“Yeah, I just… have some news about the whole curse thing.”

“Oh. Okay, what is it?” Lydia could feel her heart beat speeding up as she set down the fork, nervous now.

“Well, my friend— he’s a veterinarian, but he’s a druid, so he’s who I go to for help with this kind of thing— he found out what kind of curse had to be used on you, and it’s not reversible. It might wear off in the next few days, but if it doesn’t, then you’re going to be human.”

Lydia stared at him, eyebrows pulling together as pressure built behind her eyes a little bit. “I could be human forever?” she asked, her voice shaky.

“Yes. It’s possible. But, Lydia, don’t worry, okay? I’m sure it’ll wear off and we’ll be able to get you back to your family.”

“What if I don’t get back to them?” Lydia’s voice was shrinking, and Derek moved around slowly, gently moving close to wrap his arms around her slowly.

“What if I’m like this forever?” “If you’re like this forever, then I’ll help you learn what it’s like to be a human, okay? We’ll figure it all out. It’ll be okay.”

Lydia was crying now, and she’d hardly ever felt tears actually rolling down her cheeks. “What if it’s not okay?” she asked weakly, tucking her face in against his chest. “I’ve never even thought about what it would be like to be human.”

“Neither have I. I’m a werewolf,” Derek said quietly. “But I don’t live in a pack. My pack died. And it was hard, it was really hard, but I got through it. I’m okay now. That’s how I know that you’ll be okay, too.”

Lydia took a few deep breaths, holding tightly to Derek. If he was okay, if Derek had gone through that and been alright afterward, then maybe she could be okay living as a human instead of as a mermaid. Maybe everything would be alright.


End file.
